Pretoria - Eskom has justified calling out the City of Tshwane for non-payment of a staggering R1.6 billion debt, saying it had previously taken the same stance against other defaulting municipalities.
The embattled power utility was responding to questions regarding its recent media statement in which it singled out the Tshwane metro for its outstanding debt while it never mentioned other municipalities in the same financial trouble with the entity.
This was in light of the information that there were at least eight municipalities with outstanding debt for bulk power supply.
Gauteng finance and e-government MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko recently highlighted information regarding defaulting municipalities in written responses to questions asked at the legislature.
The information showed that Emfuleni Local Municipality had unsettled debt of R5bn, making it the worst debtor by far.
The debt of the municipality, which had been struggling to meet its financial obligations to Eskom for years, grew from R614 million in March 2018 to R4.4bn as of February this year.
At one stage the power utility threatened to attach its bank account in a bid to recover the money owed.
Asked why the parastatal did not release a media statement on Emfuleni with a whopping R5bn debt, but opted to release a statement on Tshwane, it said: “Eskom has in the past issued similar media statements around defaulting municipalities.”
Eskom also rejected criticisms that it harboured a political motive against Tshwane metro, saying: “Eskom does not view any municipality with a political motive. We are consistent with applying credit management policy or procedures to all the municipalities that are not paying their accounts.”
Last week, Tshwane mayor Randall Williams said the metro had “seen unnecessary media statements and commentary by Eskom on our current bill”.
Commenting on Williams’s utterance, Eskom said: “This is rather unfortunate, but we have and will continue engaging with the city with regards to the outstanding payments.”
Recently, the entity threatened to go ahead and disconnect the bulk power supply to the Tshwane metro.
Business community Sakeliga issued a letter of demand to Eskom indicating that any attempt to cut the supply of electricity to the metro would lead to urgent litigation.
Asked whether it would forge ahead and disconnect the power supply to Tshwane, the entity said: “Eskom will follow all the necessary processes to collect the outstanding payment, which may include disconnection of bulk supply.”
Eskom has said it rejected the payment arrangement proposed by Tshwane, saying the metro had paid R448m to date after failing to settle its electricity account that was payable on August 17.
Pretoria News